


Day Gone By

by undelicate



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Light Angst, M/M, Making Out, Strangers to Lovers, non-graphic action below the belt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22272532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undelicate/pseuds/undelicate
Summary: “Hey,” Minho began, ignoring the pounding in his rib cage, “what are your plans for today?”Jisung seemed mildly taken aback by the question, but he answered anyway.“Umm… I was going to pick up groceries and maybe do some work from home, but I have nothing else planned.” He paused to glance at Minho once more. “Why?”“Ever been to Gyejoksan Mountain?”“No?” Jisung frowned in confusion until the corner of his lips began to slowly draw upward. “But I have a feeling that might change today.”---------AKA Minho and Jisung go on a mini-road trip, and it all starts with a pretzel.---------[Edited with updated title]
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 48
Kudos: 443





	Day Gone By

Minho’s bus was late again: nine minutes and counting.

He flicked his wrist and glanced at his watch which read 7:54 a.m. He stepped to the curb and peered at the horizon for signs of an incoming bus displaying the magic number 805, the route of his morning commute.

With a growing unease burning in the back of his throat, he returned to his place in line among a few others whose restlessness buzzed off each other. He fastened his suit jacket closed and adjusted his tie to collect himself. He was glad to have company in his misery, at least.

He turned to check down the street again, and out of the corner of his eye he caught a young man in a baseball cap standing a few steps behind him on the sidewalk, munching on a large soft pretzel. His cheeks were stuffed not unlike a hamster’s, and perhaps Minho would have appreciated the cuteness were he not distracted by his bus’s late arrival and its implications, mainly that he might not wake up to a job tomorrow.

The young man aimed to take another bite, but the pretzel fell from his hand and landed on the ground with a half-hearted thud.

Minho watched with mouth agape—briefly forgetting his current anxieties—as the man bent down to pick up the pretzel. He examined it for debris, blew on it several times, and bit into it as if nothing had happened.

Feeling like he was witnessing a horror show unfold in real time, Minho couldn’t look away. The stranger caught onto his reaction and he stopped chewing for a second, before taking another shameless bite of the pretzel.

“You just… ate it off the ground?” The words glitched through Minho’s brain filter.

The young man shrugged, clearly unbothered by neither the befouled state of his food nor Minho’s judgment. He continued chewing at a leisurely pace and locked eyes with Minho as if daring him to do something about it.

Minho made a noise of disgust and rejoined the bus queue. His mouth was dry from being agitated all morning, and the scene he’d just witnessed didn’t help matters. He fished out a water bottle from his messenger bag and took a long swig.

“At least I’m not fucking up the earth,” a voice murmurred from behind.

Minho nearly choked on his water. He spun around to face the stranger again, pointedly screwing the cap back onto his bottle. “Excuse me?”

The young man raised the bill of his baseball cap, revealing dark brown puppy eyes that belied his harsh words. His cheeks were less full with food this time. “Consuming single-use plastics in this day and age?” He faintly shook his head. “Not a good look.”

“And neither is hypocrisy, considering what you’re using right now,” Minho said. He didn’t know why he felt so riled up but didn’t try to quell it.

The man looked at the brown napkin covering the pretzel in his hand. “Oh, you mean this thing? _Made from 100-percent recycled paper._ ” He took another bite and curled his lips in a smug smile.

Minho’s water bottle crunched in his grip as he gestured to a trash bin on the sidewalk corner. “If you’re so eco-friendly, why don’t you finish the half-eaten bagel from the trash over there?”

The other man opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, and his attention jumped to somewhere behind Minho’s head.

Minho took this as a sign of defeat and cheered internally. _Not so mouthy now, are you, you self-righteous little punk?_ He managed to keep that comment in his head.

The young man adjusted his cap again, and his eyes awkwardly darted back to Minho as if trying to communicate something but losing the words. Minho squinted at his odd body language.

The man finally said, “Um, is that your bus?”

Minho whipped around in time to see the last passenger boarding the bus that had finally arrived and the door hissing shut behind.

“Wait!” His legs were slow to move at first, picking up pace only when the bus started moving along. Before he could take another breath, the bus was already down the street, with the bright LED display of _805_ disappearing around the corner like a final taunt.

“Fuck,” Minho had meant to shout but expelled in a hoarse whisper. He was bent forward with hands on knees, scrabbling to assess the situation. The next bus wouldn’t be arriving for another twenty minutes, and there was no one he could call for an emergency lift.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he repeated as he pulled up the taxi app on his phone, since he wasn’t going to have much luck hailing one during the morning rush.

“Need a ride?”

Minho straightened himself up, seeing that the stranger had approached closer. The latter’s expression was softened into something akin to concern. Still, Minho was in no mood to play nice with some random dude on the street, especially one who had no qualms about eating sidewalk dirt—surely a sign of questionable morals at best.

“I’m taking a taxi.”

“I can probably take you faster to your destination, and at the amazingly reduced rate of free.” The other bit off another chunk of that damned pretzel. “I’m not saying it’s my fault that you missed your bus or anything, because that _definitely_ was _your_ fault, and maybe it was karmic justice for you using the water bottle—” He paused at Minho’s scowl but didn’t back down. “But technically speaking, I am part of the reason you’re probably late for work now, and I’m feeling extra nice today.”

Minho winced at his phone that indicated that the nearest pickup was at least twelve minutes away, and he closed the app in resignation.

“Fine, okay. I’ll go with you.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” the young man snarked. Stuffing the last bit of pretzel in his mouth, he headed down the sidewalk and got into his parked hatchback. The car was a hybrid. _Of fucking course_ , thought Minho as he followed suit.

He was hit by a wave of tropical fruit air freshener as he climbed into the passenger seat. He mumbled out his workplace address and the other punched it into his phone GPS.

“I’m Han Jisung,” the young man said as he pulled away from the curb. “Nice to meet you.”

“Lee Minho.”

Jisung threw him a side glance. “Is it not nice to meet me, too?”

Minho rubbed his temples and held back a sigh. “What would be _nice_ is if we could arrive at our destination in peace.”

From the corner of his eye, Minho caught Jisung looking a bit stung, and he was struck by a small pang of guilt in return, but he kept quiet.

To Minho’s surprise, Jisung heeded his request and didn’t make a peep during the trip. A thick silence settled in the car, amplified by the lack of engine noise, and Minho tried his best to ignore it by fiddling with his phone. He checked the time and calculated that he’d be a few minutes late to work, so he texted his boss to inform him accordingly.

Not one minute later, a phone call came from said boss.

“If you don’t get here on time I’ll be damned if you’ll have a position to return to,” the elder man’s words splintered in his ear. “Don’t go thinking you deserve special treatment, Lee. Either you arrive on time or don’t bother arriving at all.”

Minho muttered a string of apologies by rote before his boss hung up. He stuffed his phone in his pocket and embraced the silence of the car this time, clinging to it, even. The sun spilled in stronger through the window and prompted him to open up his suit jacket.

Even if his boss welcomed him back with open arms, what could he expect when he walked through the company doors? Nothing would have changed. He would remain at the mercy of the fragile egos of upper management who treated lower-level employees such as himself like collateral damage. At the ripe old age of twenty-seven, Minho was already floundering in a marathon with no end in sight, enduring long hours with a smile stretched thin across his face and an invisible hand pressed against his sternum—a constant reminder that he couldn’t afford the luxury of a deep breath.

But he wasn’t there; he was here, inside the accidental haven of a stranger’s car, one with impressive fuel efficiency and an air freshener in the shape of a palm tree hanging from the rear-view mirror. He drew a deep breath in that moment, just because he could, and he turned to his left.

Jisung sensed Minho’s stare and met his gaze for a second before focusing back on the road. In that fleeting moment, Jisung’s eyes glinted a golden hue in the sunlight, unlocking something reckless inside Minho’s chest.

“Hey,” Minho began, ignoring the pounding in his rib cage, “what are your plans for today?”

Jisung seemed mildly taken aback by the question, but he answered anyway.

“Umm… I was going to pick up groceries and maybe do some work from home, but I have nothing else planned.” He paused to glance at Minho once more. “Why?”

“Ever been to Gyejoksan Mountain?”

“No?” Jisung frowned in confusion until the corner of his lips began to slowly draw upward. “But I have a feeling that might change today.”

_Good man_ , Minho couldn’t help but think in a sudden wave of gratitude.

“It’s easy to get there by bullet train,” Minho said, his voice sounding foreign in his own ears. “Listen, I know this sounds crazy—because it is—but if you’re game, I’ll cover the tickets.”

Jisung’s look of offense was offset by a crooked grin. “Hell no! I’m driving us. This is officially a road trip now.”

Minho ducked his head to hide his growing smile. “Don’t say I dragged you into this.”

Jisung updated the GPS address on his phone, and the navigation directed him to take the next exit to eventually head southeast toward Daejeon.

“You’re seriously gonna play hooky though?” Jisung asked. “Won’t you get into trouble at work?”

Minho lightly chewed on his lip. “Actually, I’m becoming more concerned that I’ve decided to trust a stranger to drive me 150 kilometers away from my home.” He felt thwarted now that the logical part of his brain caught up with the situation at hand. Sure, this Jisung guy seemed nice enough and he _probably_ wasn’t going to abduct him into a cult or anything, but—

“It figures that you’d trust me,” Jisung said with a boastful smile. “I tend to have that effect on people. And don’t forget that you’re as much a stranger to me as I am to you, so this weird instant-trust shit goes both ways.”

Minho searched for a response to that, and he subconsciously pressed the heel of his right palm to his sternum, fingers splaying over a heartbeat that hadn’t slowed down.

“But if you’re having second thoughts, we don’t have to do this,” Jisung said, his tone more careful than before.

Minho regarded Jisung who was in a tee shirt and ripped jeans, looking like he’d stumbled out of a college party. His right hand loosely gripped the steering wheel while his left hand gently tugged at his bottom lip as if through nervous habit. His hand fell from his face when he noticed Minho’s gaze on him, and he met Minho with a shy smile.

_Trust your instincts over reason for once your life._

“No, I want this,” Minho said, idly eyeing the torn jean fabric across Jisung’s knee.

Jisung nodded in acknowledgment, and he looked ahead to the road with both hands on the steering wheel.

“Why Gyejoksan Mountain?” he asked. "Is it because of that red clay trail?"

Minho waited a beat to reply, “Yeah, I’ve wanted to walk the trail for awhile. I just haven’t had the time until now.” _Nor someone to go with._

“That’s cool. I’ve heard that it’s really therapeutic.” Jisung gave a cursory glance up and down Minho’s body, causing the latter to shift in his seat. “You’re gonna ruin your suit though, from walking in all the red mud.”

Minho surveyed his immaculate light gray suit and shrugged in response. He reasoned that he was already screwed by probably getting himself fired today, so what was one more piece of collateral damage? The bright, artificial scent of tropical fruit took the edge off any anxious thoughts.

“Mind if I roll down the window and put on some music?” Jisung said, alight with a new eagerness. “I know you wanted peace and quiet, but I don’t think I can last two hours like this.”

“Go ahead, I don’t mind. It’s your car.”

Jisung rolled down his window and tossed his baseball cap to the back seat, revealing shiny locks of dark brown, and he mussed the hat-shape out of his hair. He had resembled a grown kid with the hat on, and without it he looked decidedly more… grown-up.

The incoming air was crisp and not yet warmed by the sun, blowing Jisung’s hair in all directions. He turned on the audio and the car speakers blasted “Loveholic” by the band of the same name. The upbeat melody contrasted its melancholic lyrics.

_Like white smoke dancing in the tunnel of memory_

_I’m a wandering and crying loveholic_

Minho watched the rows of trees roll by along the highway, feeling his heartbeat snag on a childhood memory of counting each tree and making up words for numbers when he couldn’t keep up.

The sound of Jisung singing along to the music brought Minho back to the present, and whatever Minho had wanted to say was extinguished by the wind rushing in through the open window. The palm tree-shaped air freshener swayed erratically between them.

And this was the scene in the car for the next thirty minutes, until Jisung was sufficiently chilled by the early autumn wind, goosebumps trailing down his forearms as he rolled the window back up.

“Do you want me to take over driving?” Minho offered, suddenly feeling like an imposing guest.

“Nah, I’m good. I can make the trip without a problem,” Jisung assured with windblown hair, and Minho almost blurted out that he looked adorable. He cleared his throat at the realization.

Jisung turned down the music to speak at a normal volume. “So, Minho-sshi, what you do for a living?”

Minho had become so comfortable in his short time with Jisung that he was surprised they hadn’t yet exchanged basic introductions.

He explained that he worked in human resources for a medical software engineering firm, and that his job was as exciting as it sounded (not very much at all).

“I’m a writer,” Jisung said cautiously when Minho asked about him in return, then he hastened to clarify. “I swear it’s not a euphemism for being unemployed. I write novels. Published my debut title last year.”

“Oh, really? What’s it called?”

Jisung peeked at Minho, his cheeks reddening. “Don’t laugh, okay? It’s called _The Splendiferous Tales of the Three-racha Boys_.”

Minho looked out the window and chewed on the pad of his thumb to mask the giggle that threatened to bubble up.

“It’s a multi-book series,” Jisung continued, “about three underground rappers who struggle to make it while battling supernatural forces on the side. I’m currently working on the second installment.”

Minho spoke when he could trust his voice not to split into laughter. “Sounds interesting. I’ll definitely check it out.”

“Please don’t, it’s a dumb story,” Jisung said before giving into his own laughter. “Actually, please do. And buy multiple copies for all your friends and relatives, both immediate and distant.”

Minho asked him further about the series because despite the silly-sounding name, the premise was genuinely interesting to him. Jisung seemed to bask in the attention.

The discussion segued into their educational backgrounds, and Minho learned that although he was two years older than the other, Jisung had been only a year behind him in school because he’d skipped a grade early on. Jisung thoroughly deflected any notion of being some sort of genius, so Minho prodded him no further.

They settled back into silence, letting Jisung’s playlist do the talking. It was a mixture of indie and bubblegum K-pop, with classic ballads and rock songs thrown in for nostalgic flair. Minho didn’t know much of the indie stuff, but he enjoyed it, more so if Jisung was humming along in his dulcet voice.

They found their exit to Daejeon and reached Gyejoksan Mountain just shy of ten thirty.

By now the temperature was a comfortable 20 degrees, so Minho shed his jacket as he stepped out of the car.

Jisung had put his cap back on, and Minho felt his stare as he loosened his tie and tossed it onto the car seat. His fingers swiftly undid the top button of his fitted dress shirt. Jisung’s face was less scrutable under the shadow of the brim, nonetheless a dusting of pink bloomed on his cheeks.

The poor guy was overheated from driving in the sun for two hours, Minho reasoned. He then shut off his phone and tossed it onto the seat next to his jacket and tie.

“I want this to be a zero-distraction experience,” he explained when Jisung eyed him curiously.

The younger chucked his phone into the car as well and threw a peace sign up at Minho. “I can get behind that.”

The pair bought some packaged snacks from a food vendor at the base of the mountain then began their ascent. Jisung stored the snacks in his backpack (conveniently found in the cargo area of his car) and followed Minho to the start line of the red clay trail. A banner hung above it, requesting all shoes to be removed. The width of the trail was split vertically, consisting of a normal dirt path on the left side, and on the right side was a narrower swath of red clay.

They stuffed their shoes and socks into Jisung’s backpack before embarking on the right-side path. Minho rolled up his trousers to the ankle and surrendered himself to the cool and wet sensation of the clay under his bare feet. Jisung rolled up his jeans as well, looking less sure.

“Feels squishy,” Jisung remarked, wiggling his toes in the wet clay.

The trail was slippery at first, so they proceeded with caution. On one of the steeper inclines, Minho lost his balance, and he flung his arms outward to brace himself for the fall until two hands grasped his upper arm and steadied him again. Minho looked to his left and found Jisung’s face close to his, staring back with and an equal measure of fear and relief and the same pink coloring his cheeks.

“Thank you,” Minho breathed out. Jisung removed his hands and simply nodded.

They spent the next hour or so walking in amiable silence. The sun played peek-a-boo behind shifting clouds, beaming varying degrees of warmth and light, and Minho thought Jisung’s face was painted with a new shadow each time he turned to look at him.

Minho basked in the tingling that started from the soles of his feet and spread to his limbs. The trail became less slippery as they hiked onward, and he became more confident in his steps. Jisung, who had walked ahead of Minho initially, now trailed behind him a step or two as if to catch him in case of another fall. Minho knew that it was a silly assumption and highly unlikely, but he enjoyed entertaining it anyway.

There seemed to be few visitors today; during one long stretch where they hadn’t run into another soul, Minho felt as though they’d veered off into a hidden part of the trail. Even with the occasional bustle of bikers or groups of families passing by, the air between the two men remained intimate.

“Pine trees and earth,” Jisung’s voice barely dented the silence.

Minho looked to him with a tacit question.

“I think that’s my new favorite smell,” Jisung explained, making brief eye contact and turning his gaze to the dense trees on the path.

About halfway into their hike, they stopped at a wash station to scrub their feet clean since they’d decided to make a detour to Gyejoksanseong Fortress, a 6th century relic of stone wall situated on the mountain’s peak. They put their shoes back on and took a much-needed snack break. With their stomachs full enough to keep the growlings at bay, they continued onto an ascending trail of wooden steps.

Minho was the first to admit he was no poster child for robust fitness, but it did nothing to curb the embarrassment as he leaned his hands against the wooden railing, drained of stamina after a few minutes of climbing. His rocky relationship with heights didn’t help matters, either. His sense of balance reeled with each downward glance, so he focused somewhere between the clouds and line of trees.

He felt a hand rubbing the middle of his back in light circles.

“You okay, hyung?” Jisung’s voice was soft with concern, dissolving Minho’s will to lecture him on proper honorific titles. “Do you wanna go back down?”

“No, I can do this,” Minho said around labored breaths. “I just—I need a minute. Feel free to go on ahead of me.”

Jisung’s reply came in the form of settling himself next to Minho on the railing.

A sheen of sweat had formed on Minho’s forehead, and he rolled up his sleeves to the elbow and undid the second button of his shirt.

“Ready?” Jisung said after another minute had passed. He stepped forward and held out a hand. Minho felt strangely defenseless in front the gesture and could only stare.

Sensing Minho’s hesitation, Jisung began to retract his hand, until Minho’s own caught it at the last second. His fingers slid across Jisung’s palm before curling securely over the crook of his hand.

With the younger guiding him onward and upward, Minho made it to the top of the fortress without further ado. Exhaustion dulled the edges of his normally crippling fear of heights, and he allowed himself to inch closer to the precipice of the wall while staying well within safe distance. Jisung braved nearer the edge and crouched down with his arms wrapped around his knees. Tiny in his huddled form, he was hardly distinguishable from the compact slabs of rock surrounding him.

They took their time to explore the fortress site separately. Jisung stuck to the edges while Minho hung back on the inner grassy side of the wall. He didn’t think the difference of a few meters mattered much anyway, as the view from where he stood remained spectacular. Eventually, he met Jisung in the middle and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder peering over lush peaks and valleys hugging the river, with downtown Daejeon nestled in monochromatic blue in the distance.

Following their detour excursion, they removed their shoes to finish the other half of the red clay trail. The descent down the mountain was easier and Minho was hardly in danger of slipping, but he didn’t protest when Jisung held out his hand again.

As they walked along, Minho stared at their clasped hands—specifically, Jisung’s hand that had gone from holding a pretzel, to grasping the steering wheel, to now being warmly slotted with his own hand within a span of hours. He struggled to reconcile the trajectory of these images.

“Why did you trust me so quickly?” Minho asked.

Jisung stopped in his tracks, prompting Minho to do the same.

“Why did _you_ trust _me_ so quickly?” Jisung simply replied.

Minho quirked up the corner of his mouth, finding relief in the deflection because he wasn’t sure if he could offer a plausible explanation anyway, and perhaps he didn’t want to hear one from Jisung, either.

They became more chatty after that, and their conversations turned to lighter topics, covering everything from the validity of the 5-second rule (“dropping food on the sidewalk is beyond the scope of the rule,” Minho argued) to the best way to eat a can of Pringles. Minho was pleased when Jisung agreed it was the shake-and-pour method.

Things turned more heated when they began to discuss the merits of time travel as a dramatic plot device, with Jisung highlighting its logical contradictions while Minho hand-waved them, saying that emotional impact was more important than technicalities.

“But what if you go back in time and kill your own ancestors?” Jisung said as he passed his steel water bottle to Minho with his free hand. “You wouldn’t even be born.”

“Eh… It’s not fair to pick it apart like that.” Minho took a swig and relished the cool water coating his throat. Honestly, he didn’t care either way about the subject, but he enjoyed the look of annoyance on Jisung’s face and continued to play the role of adversary. “When you write about the monsters in your book, do you expect readers to believe they’re actually real?”

Jisung cutely scrunched up his nose. “That’s different. Monsters don’t exist, but time travel does, in theory.”

“And all this metaphysical talk is giving me a headache, in theory.”

Jisung opened his mouth to respond, then drew it into a pout. Minho giggled and gave Jisung’s hand a squeeze to let him know that he was kidding as they continued down the path. A minute of silence later, Jisung squeezed back.

Minho had forgotten that his feet were caked in coppery red by the time they reached the finish line back to where they’d started. After they washed off the clay a final time, he felt alien standing in his dress shoes, his skin missing the cool and sure contact of earth.

They went on to peruse the stands of souvenirs and trinkets that were set up near the trail’s end. Jisung held in his palm a cat figurine carved out of wood whose cheeks were painted with hearts; he gently stroked the top of its head with a finger. Minho paid for the item behind Jisung’s back, and when Jisung was about to return it to the shelf, Minho’s hand closed over younger’s, gesturing him to keep it.

“Thank you,” Jisung said as Minho walked away ducking the words.

* * *

It was nearing three o’clock when they completed the trail, and neither of them needed to spell out that food was their next order of business.

“I guess we can google for restaurants when we get back to the car,” Minho suggested.

“I don’t know,” Jisung said with a half-smile, “I kind of like being untethered. Let’s ask around to see if we can walk somewhere local.”

By the recommendation of a local resident, they made the 15-minute trek to a restaurant tucked away from the main roads. Its name was faded to near illegibility on a green awning.

“This is the best kalguksu I’ve ever had in my life,” Jisung said, right as he drank the noodle broth straight from the bowl.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Minho agreed. He picked up the last piece of braised potato with his chopsticks and dropped it on Jisung’s plate.

“Normally I’d be photo documenting the shit out of everything here,” Jisung continued as he popped the potato in his mouth, “but I don’t feel the need right now. It’s nice just being in the moment with someone, sharing a kickass meal.”

Minho’s chopsticks hovered over one side dish to another, and though he felt Jisung look to him for a response, he struggled to pull his gaze upward.

“That’s a sentiment normally reserved for old folks,” Minho said, his eyes landing on the curve of Jisung’s neck, “but I don’t disagree.”

“It must be a side effect of the red clay.”

Minho snorted and finally met Jisung’s eyes. “Must be.”

He called for the check shortly afterward, and when it arrived, he snatched it before Jisung could even make a reach for it.

“Hyung,” Jisung whined nasally, “you have to give me a chance to fight for it at least.”

“I may have shit stamina, but my reflexes are legendary,” Minho proclaimed as he slipped his credit card into the check holder.

Jisung coughed, then nearly fell over laughing.

“Shut up, that’s not what I meant,” Minho said while succumbing to laughter himself.

* * *

They found themselves wandering the local roads in search of a worthy dessert that could follow the exceptional meal they’d just had. The late afternoon sun teetered over the horizon and bathed all in yellow-gold.

Jisung removed his hat and ruffled his hair again, leaving it an acceptable state of disheveled.

Staring at Jisung’s handsome and gilded profile, Minho wanted to ask him why he kept his face hidden under a hat at all. Instead, he pointed to an ice cream cart down the street and raced the him to it (Minho lost). Jisung picked out his flavor, and before he could take out his wallet, Minho had already paid for both of their treats. Jisung asked him with a straight face if he could bend time.

“This feels suspiciously like a date,” Jisung said as he sat down next to Minho on a street bench. He held a double scoop ice cream cone in his hand—vanilla marbleized with several types of chocolate.

Minho regarded his own ice cream cone, a single scoop of mint chocolate. “You let complete strangers pick you up and take you out on dates often?”

“Says the person who asked a complete stranger to play hooky with him. In freaking Daejeon.”

_Touché_ , Minho thought, but he tucked it away behind a wordless smile.

Jisung flinched when Minho pretended to smash his cone on the younger’s face; Minho received a well-placed forehead flick in return.

“So was barefoot hiking in the mud and stuff healing for you?” Jisung asked sincerely, some time after their bickering had faded.

Minho watched Jisung bite eagerly into his ice cream and screw his eyes shut at the ensuing brain freeze.

“Yeah, actually,” Minho said. “It was.”

* * *

“How long do you think we can sit here before someone calls the cops on us?” Jisung asked.

They had been sitting on the same street bench for the past hour and a half. Maybe it was longer; time seemed to warp when Minho talked with Jisung, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d checked his watch. Truth be told, he’d avoided checking it for fear that the spell of this impromptu journey would be broken.

“Are you kidding? We’re the perfect picture of innocence.” Minho sounded sadder than he’d intended.

Jisung leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his hands rubbing against bare arms. The sun had dipped below the horizon and rendered his profile almost featureless against the dimming sky.

“If you’re cold, we can head back to your car,” Minho said, feeling guilty that he tolerated the cool evening better. He regarded Jisung’s bare knee that poked through his ripped jeans, and he finally forced himself to check his watch. “It’s almost seven thirty. Do you want to go—”

“No,” Jisung’s reply came quickly, and Minho held his breath over several heartbeats. “I mean, we should probably head back to the car. But I don’t want to go home.” He turned to face Minho on the bench. “Not just yet.”

Before Jisung had cut him off, Minho had meant to ask if they should go visit a bar or cafe in downtown Daejeon. The question seemed meaningless now, so he didn’t repeat it.

Minho stood up first and he was the one to offer a hand this time. Jisung took it to haul himself to his feet, and their hands remained linked as they walked down the darkening street. Their fingers had become entwined somewhere within the space of three blocks.

They unlinked their hands when they stopped by a convenience store along the way. They picked out triangle kimbap and a few other light snacks as they both agreed they weren’t ready for dinner from having eaten lunch so late in the day.

“Single use plastics?” Minho commented when Jisung tossed two small bottles of fruit smoothies into the shopping basket.

Jisung’s ears turned red as he pretend-shoved Minho’s shoulder.

“Admit it,” Minho teased, undeterred, “you’re not the paragon of eco-friendliness that you claim to be.”

To Minho’s surprise, Jisung took his words to heart and started to put the bottles back on the shelf. The older stopped him with his hand on Jisung’s again—a déjà vu moment from earlier at the souvenir stand.

“I’m kidding,” Minho said, his thumb swiping the top of Jisung’s hand before pulling away.

Jisung quirked up the corner of his mouth and asked, “You buying anything else?”

Minho shook his head, and Jisung immediately sprinted to the check-out counter, dumping their items from the basket and reaching for his wallet in haste. Minho followed after a split second delay and grabbed him by the waist from behind, pulling him away easily.

“No! I’m paying this time!” Jisung tried to wriggle out of the older’s grasp, but Minho only held tighter with both of his arms wrapped around Jisung’s torso in a labored back hug.

“Respect the chain of seniority,” Minho laughed into Jisung’s hair.

Jisung stilled and went limp in Minho’s arms, leaning back into his chest. Minho thought the weight should have been more burdensome than it felt. He was grateful for the barrier of Jisung’s backpack squished between them that absorbed the telltale pounding of his heart, and he let his arms fall as Jisung pushed off his chest. The younger turned around and walked backward to the counter with his hands in his pockets and a smile that was somewhere between smug and sorry.

The store clerk looked relieved when Jisung made the payment, and the latter declined the plastic bags that were offered, putting the items into his backpack instead.

They ate their triangle kimbap in silence over the next few blocks, and Jisung was sipping on strawberry smoothie by the time they reached his car. The parking lot was near deserted now. Jisung’s hatchback sat half-illuminated under a light pole while the few other poles shined their lights on empty pavement and patches of grass that grew in the cracks.

Jisung opened the driver’s side door to toss in his backpack and retrieve his phone. He quickly checked for any missed messages.

“Huh,” he said as it slipped the phone in his back pocket.

“You went almost a whole day without your phone, and the world didn’t end," Minho said in amusement. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

Jisung put on a fake pout, making his cheeks puff out more. “Dang. Not even one text saying anyone missed me.”

Instead of climbing into the seat, Jisung shut the door and leaned against the side of the car, and Minho didn’t hesitate to settle himself next to Jisung against the car as well.

Minho placed his hands by his side, laying his palms flat on the vehicle and drumming his fingers. If he needed to say anything to Jisung, he knew this was the time to do so. And yet he couldn’t, for he felt unworthy of this moment. No matter how he tried to frame the day’s events, the truth of the matter was that he’d misjudged and imposed on Jisung who had been nothing but kind and funny and utterly unjudging of Minho’s pseudo-life crisis that had started from that morning. He couldn’t possibly imagine what Jisung was getting out of such a random act of kindness.

“I’m sorry,” Minho said, startling himself with his own voice. If his brain filter was glitching before, it was simply gone now. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d genuinely apologized to anyone, let alone to someone he’d barely met and for reasons he was still trying to untangle. But today was full of firsts, apparently.

Jisung turned to look at him. “Sorry for what?”

Minho blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “For calling you a self-righteous punk.”

“No, you didn’t? I would have remembered if you had.”

“No, I mean I thought it when I met you at the bus stop,” Minho said, wishing someone would physically stop him from speaking right now. “Even if I didn’t say it out loud, I still kinda feel bad about it. So, uh... yeah.”

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve been called,” Jisung said with a shrug. “And I am, sometimes.”

Minho crossed his arms and shifted his weight to his right foot, bringing him centimeters closer to the other. “You’re passionate about saving the earth, is all.”

“Don’t go soft on me now,” Jisung snorted, leaning slightly to his left. “And I guess I should apologize too. I called you a hot prickly bastard in my head when you judged me for eating the pretzel.” He scratched the tip of his nose and looked away.

“Oh, okay.” Minho paused to rewind Jisung’s words. “Wait, you think I’m hot?”

Jisung glanced at Minho with a barely-there smile. “I’m not gonna repeat it, so don’t get cocky.”

It took all of Minho’s efforts to suppress the grin that threatened to creep up. The flush on his face, however, he could do nothing about except hope it wasn’t too visible under the dim parking lot lighting.

“So what should we do now?” Jisung said as he pushed off the car. “There’s not much else to do in this part of town at this hour.”

Minho grew silent as he searched for something to say, only to come up empty. He saw Jisung reach for the car door handle out of the corner of his eye.

“You seem tired, hyung. Do you want to go home?”

Something coiled in Minho’s chest to hear the very question he’d hoped to avoid all evening. He didn’t know what he wanted—right now, or tomorrow, or in the larger sense of his life—yet the uncertainty felt less when it was Jisung who posed the question.

Minho uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, unsure as to where his footsteps would land. Jisung’s hand fell away from the door handle as he looked to the older, and he hooked his thumbs into his jean pockets in an awkward attempt at a casual pose, but his eyes never wavered from Minho’s. Minho stopped at a hand’s length away. Logically, he knew he was a few centimeters taller than Jisung, and his shoulders were broader, but he felt as though Jisung could tower over him if he took the final step to close the distance between them.

“Go ahead, you can ask,” Jisung said in a hushed tone.

Minho reminded himself to exhale. “Ask you what?”

“If you can kiss me.”

“Oh,” Minho’s breath caught in his throat, and time seemed to have stopped altogether as Jisung stood plainly before him. Jisung’s eyes were deep and sincere and mapped with an open desire, the shape of which Minho realized he’d already known by heart. He drew a shaky breath at the revelation, but a surety propelled him forward all the same.

“Jisung, can I ki—”

Minho’s words were cut off by Jisung’s lips on his own. At first it was a no more than a gentle, steady pressure until Jisung parted his lips slightly in a soft exhalation. Minho was overwhelmed by warmth, and he brought up a hand to cradle the side of Jisung’s face, thumb stroking his cheek, and he parted his own lips against Jisung’s. The kiss was restrained with neither of them taking the lead, their mouths moving tentatively after each lingering press.

They kissed like this for awhile, then Jisung pulled away and walked backward, taking Minho with him until his back was flush to the car door, effectively trapping himself between it and Minho.

“You do realize you just kissed a mouth that ate a dirty pretzel?” Jisung looked as smug as when Minho first saw him at the bus stop that morning.

Minho scrunched up his nose, not letting on to how much he was missing the contact of the other’s lips. “How do I unkiss someone?”

“Hey, that’s mean,” Jisung whined.

Minho laughed and pressed his lips to other’s as an apology, which Jisung more than accepted. He settled a hand to the side of Minho’s neck to steady him. Emboldened by the touch, Minho’s eyes fluttered shut as he licked into the warmth just past Jisung’s lips. Jisung’s breath hitched, and he was deepening the kiss in no time.

Jisung’s mouth moving hungrily against his own pushed the last gasp of laughter from Minho’s lungs, and he was bereft of all thought other than chasing the heat of Jisung’s tongue. Minho could taste the remnants of strawberry flavor.

The space between them was suddenly too much; Jisung seemed to echo the sentiment as he hooked his other arm around Minho’s waist to press their bodies flush against each other. Feeling his knees buckle from the surge of sheer want, Minho braced himself on the car with a hand on either side of the younger. The rhythms of their breathing grew erratic around the soft sounds of tongue and lips, tangling and relenting and needing.

The hand that was holding Minho’s waist was now sliding up his torso, stopping at his collar and deftly popping open the third button of his shirt. Jisung gently sucked on Minho’s bottom lip, teeth barely grazing the swollen flesh as his hand dipped under Minho’s shirt and roamed the smooth expanse of his chest. The white heat of Jisung’s palm on his bare skin sent Minho gasping into Jisung’s mouth and careening into his own dizzying need to touch and _feel_ more than what was given.

Minho succumbed to the need and removed his hands from bracing against the car to slip them under the hem of Jisung’s shirt. Minho was rewarded with a hum of approval against his lips as he spread his hands over Jisung’s ribs, lightly dragging his fingertips down the sides, feeling the younger shiver under his touch. Minho kept his balance by shifting his weight to press more firmly against Jisung, creating a new friction between them in the process. Jisung replied with a whimper as he pressed back, bucking his hips again and again, each motion sparking a white hot desire in the pit of Minho’s stomach, and his hips answered back with its own rolling rhythm. Jisung’s arms were now wrapped around Minho’s neck, pulling the older impossibly closer, their kisses and licks slowing down while the movement of their hips sped up.

Their mouths started to go slack from panting, and Minho stilled Jisung’s hips with his hands, steadying him against the car. Their chests heaved out of sync as they paused to catch their breaths.

“If we keep going like this, we’re bound to make a mess,” Minho said, low and hushed against Jisung’s gleaming lips, surprised that he could form a coherent sentence. “I want this too, but maybe we should wait till we’re somewhere more private, yeah?”

Jisung breathed out a small laugh and nodded. Minho stilled in adoration of the shadows of his long lashes sweeping his cheeks and the blush that had spread down to his neck.

“Can we still make out? Just a little more?” Jisung whispered back.

It was Minho’s turn to exhale a laugh. He leaned in to capture Jisung in another kiss and their lips moved chastely this time, as if starting the encounter over from scratch. Their bodies were touching lightly now, but Minho’s skin hummed with the remnants of an electric embrace from moments ago.

A buzzing sounded from nearby and Jisung abruptly pulled back. In a flustered motion, he pulled his phone out from his back pocket and unlocked it. His eyes grew wide at the screen.

“Oh shit,” Jisung said under his breath. “ _Oh shit_.”

“What’s wrong?” Minho asked.

Jisung ran a hand through his hair, tugging it in distress. He spoke quickly in a high and agitated tone. “My roommate just texted and I totally forgot that I’m supposed to pick up his parents from Incheon tonight.” His brows slanted upward, making him look like a kicked puppy. “They’re coming in from Paris and my roommate won’t be back till tomorrow, so I promised him that I’d take care of them. I totally fucked up. _Fuck_.”

“Can they take a taxi or something?”

“That would be shitty of me to ask of them, considering they can’t speak Korean and no one is even home to receive them.” Jisung looked as though he might cry as he dragged his hand forward through his hair and over his face.

Minho reached out with a hand to gently smooth the tufts of hair that Jisung had left sticking up. “When does their flight arrive?”

Jisung frantically scrolled through his phone and exhaled when he found the information. “In two hours.”

“If you hurry now, you can make it,” Minho said. The hand on Jisung’s hair slid down to cup the side of his face. “The traffic isn’t so bad at this hour, and your guests will be held up in customs for a bit anyway.”

“But what about you?” Jisung said, biting the inside of his lip.

Minho resisted the temptation to kiss away the worry from his mouth. “I’ll be fine. I can easily take the train home.”

Jisung looked unsure, but he nodded anyway and took a deep breath, now looking like a slightly less-kicked puppy. He climbed into the car and rolled down the window.

“I’m really sorr—”

Minho leaned in and hushed him with a soft kiss, failing to resist the temptation after all.

“You can make it up to me later,” he whispered onto Jisung’s lips then stepped back. Jisung almost broke into a smile but was quickly sobered by the immediate situation.

He handed Minho the clothing he’d left in the car along with his phone and messenger bag. Jisung gripped the steering wheel with both hands, but his eyes didn’t leave Minho’s face.

“Go on, hurry,” Minho insisted, fearing he might actually ask Jisung to stay.

The younger finally pointed his gaze forward and drove away toward the darkness of night. Minho draped his suit jacket over his shoulders and watched the hatchback speed off about fifty meters down the road, screech to a halt, and reverse directly back to him. He furrowed his brow confusion.

Before he could ask what was going on, Jisung stuck his phone out at Minho through the car window; the younger was looking doubly flustered than he was a minute ago.

“Your phone number, hyung,” he hastened to say with flushed cheeks. “Um, please.”

Startled, Minho accepted the phone and momentarily stared at it in bafflement. Jisung had felt like such a sure and inevitable presence in his life in the short span of their time together, that it didn’t even occur to him that they hadn’t exchanged contact info. He hurriedly added his number and handed the phone back to Jisung.

"I’ll text you as soon as I can," were Jisung’s last words before he sped off again down the street, this time with no signs of turning around. The car blinked its right side turn signal, rounded the corner, and disappeared into a silhouette of trees along the road.

* * *

Minho’s phone showed three missed calls and about a dozen missed texts from his boss, but he didn’t check them until he was back in his apartment later that night.

He was sitting on the couch still dressed in the same shirt and trousers, with his jacket folded over an arm and his phone in the other hand. The three buttons of his dress shirt that had become undone over the course of the day remained as they were. It made for a poor fashion statement but served as proof that Han Jisung wasn’t a figment of some fever dream.

The first voicemail was of his boss giving him a verbal thrashing, conveying through colorful metaphors that he was all but fired. The second voicemail that came a few hours later was his boss offering a half-assed roundabout apology (" _words may have been said that weren’t the most prudent_ ") telling Minho that he’d be welcomed back to the company if he showed up two hours early to work for the next two weeks. The ultimatum was highly unethical, and probably illegal, but by now the thrill of playing hooky was overridden by the need to pay the rent.

In the third and most recent voicemail, his boss had drunk-dialed him (during a night out with staff no doubt) and recited a recipe for oatmeal muffins, asking him to bring a batch to work the next day. Minho was fairly certain he was exempt from this request. Probably.

As he sank deeper into the couch, a distant and foolish part of him wished that he had been fired after all. It would have been, at least, an interruption to the days that droned on indistinguishable from one another, and certainly a reprieve from a job that became increasingly harder to wake up to.

The responsible voice within him—finally making a cameo after a daylong absence—swiftly reminded him that change for the sake of change rarely resulted in a net gain, and he was lucky to be given another chance at the company regardless of how he felt about being another faceless cog in the unrelenting corporate machine. Dreams didn’t pan out like they did in the movies, not when surviving the day-to-day was the main plotline with no ending in sight.

But as the past sixteen or so hours flashed before him, a collage of highway pavement and red clay and torn jeans flitted across his mind like snapshots falling out of a scrapbook. He allowed himself a precious moment to believe that even if there was no meaning in his job or everyday routine, maybe he could find meaning somewhere else—in someone else.

Exhaustion finally seeped into his bones; he changed into his pajamas and gathered up his now less-than-immaculate suit for future dry cleaning. A familiar scent of tropical fruit lingered in his jacket, making his heart tick just a little faster, and without thinking he gently pressed his nose to the fabric.

When he crawled into bed an hour later, instead of leaving his phone lying on its usual nightstand, he placed it beside him on the bed just beyond the edge of his pillow. He pondered staying up longer in case Jisung were to text him after returning from the airport, but he underestimated the strain he’d put his body through that day and blacked out into sleep mode before his phone could.

* * *

Minho arrived at the office next morning at a little before seven o’clock. He flicked on the switch and rows of fluorescent lights flickered across the ceiling like dominos. It was a bit eerie to see so many bright lights over dozens of empty cubicles.

He dumped his bag onto his cubicle desk and turned on his computer.

After staring at the screen for five minutes and unable to jumpstart his brain, he headed to the employee kitchen area to make instant coffee. The oversweet taste never agreed with him, but he drank it for the occasional caffeine boost. He checked his phone to no new messages before reminding himself that most people were either asleep or busy getting ready for the day at this hour.

He sat down on the kitchen floor, leaning against a cabinet, and he stayed there holding a half-cup of cold coffee until a cleaning staff member came in and shooed him away with a roaring vacuum.

It was a universal law of physics that time flew by faster when one drowned themselves in busywork, so he dove into processing his backlog of paperwork.

That worked for approximately twenty minutes until his mind went back to looping the highlight reel of yesterday’s events. Particularly Jisung’s warm hand, Jisung’s adorable smile, Jisung’s sweet lips, Jisung’s… well, everything.

“Ha! Look who decided to join us again,” Minho’s boss greeted as he walked through the office door two hours later. Minho slumped in his chair in a useless attempt to hide behind his monitor, and he stood up to bow when the elder man approached. The man patted Minho’s back (which felt more like a slap) as he said, “Did you bring those oatmeal muffins?”

Minho froze with eyes widened, and his boss bellowed a laugh.

“It’s a joke, Lee! Come on!”

He left behind an overbearing trail of cheap cologne and disappeared into his cushy office.

Nine and a half hours later, Minho sat on bus 805 on his way home, with his phone cradled in his hand. He had received a total of 39 texts that day: 21 from his boss, 16 from coworkers, 2 from his mother (who had sent pictures of his cats), and zero from Jisung.

* * *

The winds were gusting harder than normal this morning, and Minho pulled his overcoat tighter around his body. Like the previous two mornings, he found himself waiting at the bus stop in near darkness and alone. The weather forecast of clear and sunny autumn skies did little to assure him of the day ahead. He picked up several bits of candy wrapper that had floated past his feet and dumped them in a nearby trash bin.

_Jisung would be proud that I’m saving the earth_ , he thought bittersweetly.

Jisung still hadn’t called or texted, but Minho told himself not to be _that_ guy who checked his phone every two seconds and analyzed every bit of delay of incoming messages. He remembered that Jisung’s roommate’s parents were in town, and he was probably busy entertaining them, showing them around Seoul and doing other touristy activities.

Or, maybe Jisung didn’t want to see him at all; it could have been as simple as that, and it was a reason as valid as any other.

Besides, Jisung didn’t owe him anything, and it wasn’t as if they were friends, despite how quickly they’d bonded in their short time together. Minho had wrestled with a crisis on that morning and Jisung happened to be there to latch onto. If anything, he should have been grateful that Jisung was such a good sport about it.

Had Minho asked any other stranger to go on an impromptu trip to Daejeon with him, they would have understandably run in the opposite direction. Han Jisung had instead smiled and declared it a road trip.

Minho’s watch read 5:45 a.m., and the bus arrived exactly on time.

* * *

Minho hadn’t planned to end up in a seedy bathroom stall of a night club while heavily making out with a stranger, but he wasn’t complaining either. He had arrived at the club to seek reprieve from the plague that was Jisung running through every inch of his goddamn mind for the past week. It was a Saturday night after all, and he gave himself permission to lose himself in whatever distraction he could find.

“What’s your name?” the man breathed hot into his ear.

“Doesn’t matter,” Minho said, his breaths turning ragged. “You wanna get me off or not?”

“No pussyfooting, eh? I like that.”

“Good.”

Minho tilted his head to kiss along the other’s jawline and down his neck, and he held back a moan as he felt hands working to unbutton his trousers.

As Minho mouthed the skin near the pulse point, the glint of a silver earring caught his eye. A small palm tree dangled from the man’s ears, and Minho screwed his eyes shut, the blood frozen in his veins.

“Wait,” Minho whispered, pulling himself back.

The man stopped his movements but kept his fingers hooked over the waistband of Minho’s trousers. He creased his brow in a questioning look.

Minho removed the other’s hands and buttoned himself back up. “Sorry.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” the man sighed, and Minho walked out of the restroom, not bothering to tuck his shirt back in.

He hailed a taxi home and cursed the cosmic powers that be for having such a twisted sense of humor.

His limbs felt like jelly as he trudged into his apartment, though he had barely drunk anything that night. He slipped out of his shirt and fitted trousers and hung them back in his closet. The light gray suit still hung in the corner and had remained untouched since the day with Jisung, and he told himself that he really should bring it to the dry cleaner tomorrow. He removed the suit from the rod and instinctively held the jacket up to his face; the scent of fruit air freshener had become much fainter now. He fell backward onto his bed, holding the clothing to his chest.

“Stupid,” Minho chastised himself aloud for pining like a fool. A lump formed in his throat anyway, and he buried his face in the fabric until the cologne from his body replaced the last traces of the road trip.

* * *

“Just one more week of this bullshit,” Minho muttered to himself. On this early morning, the skies were a deep purple with the faintest hints of orange speckled on the clouds closest to the horizon. The winds had died down and the air was warmer, so he had stepped outside in his suit without an overcoat.

As he approached the bus stop, he spotted a silhouette of a hooded someone sitting on the bench under the bus shelter. Minho’s steps slowed to a halt when the figure stood up and slowly walked toward him, stopping at a handful of paces away.

Minho wondered if the lighting of the sky was playing tricks on him.

“Jisung?”

“Minho hyung,” Jisung said just above a whisper, lowering the hood from his head. He was in an oversized sweatshirt and cradling a cup of takeaway coffee in his hands. He briefly turned his face to the side; Minho was struck by the unmistakable line of his profile, and for a second they were back sitting on the street bench in Daejeon.

Minho hastened to take a step closer, but Jisung’s expression was so unfamiliar and guarded, with eyes so vulnerable, that Minho became rooted to the ground.

“Before you say anything," Jisung continued with caution, "I need to know. Did you not want to see me again?”

Minho felt himself frown in confusion, and for a moment he was unable to form an answer to a question he never thought could be posed.

“What do you mean?” he said breathlessly. His eyes flitted across Jisung’s face in search of a clue. “Of course I wanted to see you.”

Jisung looked down at the coffee cup in his hands, and his voice was barely audible over the car that passed them by. “Then why did you give me a fake phone number?”

Minho deepened his frown, feeling more confused than ever. “I—what?”

“I tried to text you as soon as I came home that night. But it turned out to be a disconnected line.”

Minho took a moment to walk himself through that night, and the frantic state he was in when he had taken Jisung’s phone and added his contact, right before Jisung had driven off. “I… my hand must have slipped and put in the wrong number by mistake.”

A terrible weight was lifted from Minho’s shoulders as that was becoming the most likely scenario. He felt incredibly stupid for his carelessness, but it was infinitely less painful than the idea that Jisung would have abandoned him.

However, Jisung wasn't as convinced. He bit his lower lip and looked up at Minho again, the uncertainty not yet quelled in his eyes and causing his voice to waver. “I’m not a kid, okay? I can take rejection. It sucks, but I can handle it. Just, please, all I ask is for honesty.”

“I don’t know how to make you believe me,” Minho said, feeling lost again, “but every day I waited to hear from you. When I didn’t, I thought maybe you didn’t want to see me either.”

They stood wordlessly on the sidewalk, and the only sounds were the faint drones of a stirring highway in the distance. The sky was dim but glowed with just enough light that Minho could make out the weariness in Jisung’s face.

“You waited here all night?” Minho asked. His chest ached at the thought of Jisung huddled on the bus stop bench alone in the darkness.

Jisung weakly nodded. “Every morning for the past week, I looked for you here at around the same time we first met. I wasn’t going to beg you to see me again or anything. I just wanted to know the truth. 

"But you never showed up, and then I thought maybe you had changed to a night schedule. So last night I came here and waited for you… just in case. If it was anyone else, I would have left it alone and moved on, but…"

Jisung took a small step forward, clutching the coffee cup tighter with both hands as if to draw courage from it. “Hyung, I felt something with you that night. Tell me—did I imagine it all?”

Minho released a shaky breath, and in an instant he surged forward and engulfed Jisung in a tight embrace, tucking his face into the crook of the younger’s neck. It was awkward, with Jisung’s coffee in between them preventing full contact, but Minho took as much of him into his arms as he could. One hand threaded the soft hair above Jisung’s nape while the other pressed into the space between his shoulder blades.

Minho nudged his face closer against Jisung’s neck and breathed into the warmth of his skin, feeling the pounding of his heart reverberate in the tips of his fingers, the soles of his feet.

“That night was— _you_ , Jisung, were the realest thing I felt in a very long time.”

Jisung’s hands were rendered immobile from still clutching the coffee, but Minho felt him settle deeper into his arms and nudge his cheek closer to Minho’s own.

“I was worried that maybe I was a bad kisser or something and it turned you off, enough for you to ghost me.” A warm teasing crept back into Jisung’s voice.

“Quite the opposite,” Minho said as he allowed himself a small smile, “but I won’t stop you should you need to prove it to me again.”

Jisung stepped back, breaking the embrace, and Minho immediately mourned the loss of contact. The younger hurried to toss the coffee cup into the nearby trash bin and closed the gap between them again, this time circling his arms around Minho’s neck to bring their bodies flush to each other. Minho’s hands found Jisung’s waist to pull him closer so that not even a sliver of light could pass through between them.

Jisung tilted up his head to connect their lips in a chaste kiss; their foreheads touched as their mouths drew apart.

“Can I drive you to work?” he asked, sounding shy all of a sudden.

Minho couldn’t resist placing another quick kiss on the other’s lips. “I would love that.”

Jisung led Minho by the hand to his parked car, and the latter was greeted by the familiar scent of fruit as he climbed into the passenger seat. He poked the dangling palm tree-shaped air freshener with fondness.

“Hyung, your phone number,” Jisung said with a smirk as he held out his phone. “With the correct digits this time, please.”

Minho took the phone with a smile and a shake of the head. He edited his contact with the correct number (surely enough, a digit had been off) and handed it back to Jisung, who promptly texted him with a heart-eyes emoji.

Jisung drove onto the road, and Minho settled into his seat to look out the passenger side window. A faint orange glow spread out just above the horizon with the promise of sunrise, but that wasn’t what filled his heart with hope.

Jisung turned on the audio and sang right along to “Don’t Leave Me, My Love” floating through the speakers. As Jisung’s soothing vocals filled the car, Minho closed his eyes and let himself believe that they were drifting down an open and endless highway.

Minho let himself believe.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Here are the audio links for:  
> \- [Loveholic - Loveholic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meDRgBmiU2w)  
> \- [Colde - Don't Leave Me, My Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPcPoa4sMt4) (w/ lyrics)
> 
> 2\. This was my small love letter to minsung & my favorite trope (road trip)... Thank you for reading ♡♡♡


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